Nostalgia & History > Menlo Park--Feb-1960

2-28-1960 attending the NMRA-PCR meeting Menlo Park MRR club.

Along with John Allen and Whit Towers, I stepped out side to see some action.

SP commuter shots.

Don---Napa

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Did SP run many trains during the day with only one passenger car?
(I think i have seen other pictures like this.)

Charlen

charlesn Wrote:
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> Did SP run many trains during the day with only
> one passenger car?
> (I think i have seen other pictures like this.)

A single Gallery, or a Gallery & Sub combo were a very common mid-day consist throughout the 60's and 70's.

Otherwise, man has Menlo (excepting the depot) changed! Thanks for the look-back, Don!

-E.O.

hogheaded Wrote:

> A single Gallery, or a Gallery & Sub combo were a
> very common mid-day consist throughout the 60's
> and 70's.

E.K. Muller caught such a train early in the gallery car era and late in the steam era at Santa Clara, CA in 1956. Photo courtesy the Western Railway Museum Archives:

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One-car trains weren't "very common" on Mo-Fr trains
in the 70s-- probably not on the weekend either?
Wonder why SP decided against them.

The forward half of the car was for smokers
and the rear portion for non-smokers.

I see the 2454 has an air horn up above the smoke box. I thought only the GS4's had them. Very cool! I cringed when I saw the double-headed Train Masters with two gallery cars. The brakes on a train like that were not very good to say the least.

One of the Barriger pics at Potrero tower
shows a 4-6-2 with a horn.

TheG-Man Wrote:

> I see the 2454 has an air horn up above the smoke
> box. I thought only the GS4's had them. Very
> cool!

Most of SP's semi-streamlined 4-8-4's (GS's) had air horns, as did most of their later articulateds:

GS-2: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3578692,3578855#3578855
GS-6: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3583810,3585328#3585328

AC-9: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,3640729,3640729#3640729
AC-11: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3537573,3537581#3537581
AC-12: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,1118442,1118517#1118517

Several 4-8-2's and 4-6-2's were retrofitted with them as well. SP 2467 had one when it was retired, and still had it when it was on display in Oakland:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,592199,592219#592219
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2724309,2724315#2724315

During its restoration in the 1990's, the horn was moved from above the smoke box to a spot underneath the running boards.